The Olympics

Volte Farce



It seems that, in a complete turn around from earlier statements, Greece now expects to reduce its public deficit to 2.9 percent of output in 2004. This is in contrast to earlier statements predicting another year of deficits in excess of 3%, the EU's budgetary ceiling.



Greece seems to be relying on the Keynesian principle of "pay a man to dig a hole, rather than pay him to do nothing" coming to the rescue of its bloated budget.



Greece's Economy and Finance Minister Yiorgos Alogoskoufis, is now expecting the general government deficit will reach 2.9%.



This is despite the fact that the cost of the Olympic Games 2004 is now expected to be a whopping 5.4BN Euros.



The magic 2.9% (below the 3% threshold) is to be achieved by unidentified funds saving post Olympics 2004.



Well we can all hope!



In May, the much respected and trusted, Eurostat statistics agency (see In Your Face and read my article about fraud to see what I think of them) said that the Greek deficit was 3.2% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2003. In April 2004 the EU's executive commission noted that the Greek deficit was likely to stay at 3.2% in 2004.



Given the above, would anyone care to venture an opinion as to how Greece will dip below the 3% threshold?



Answers please on a postcard to the Greek Finance Minister, I suspect he needs all the help that he can get.